To Hundre dager fest!! (two hundred day party)

This is a bit late, but it is one of the first times I've been free!
Two hundred days! That is a long time, So to celebrate here are some intresting facts about the number. 200 hundred miles is the average amount that the pony express would cover in a day. Each dandelions can produce 200 seeds. In Greek mythology Typhon the Titan had 200 red eyes, two for each of his 100 heads.

Two hundred is also the number of days that we have been living in Norway. The time has seemed to both fly and go incredibly slowly. It was September 28, and I planned a party

In order to celebrate I thought it would be fun to do a themed party. 200 days deserves something right? So I set up a movie with dad and mom, I created a shopping list (of course we had food), I assigned out jobs to the kids, and we were set.
Movie: Monster's Inc.
Shopping list: Candy (of course!), Hot dogs (our first meal in Norway), pop (there is always pop on airplanes), and I would have liked peanuts and pretzels but that got vetoed in light of all the candy available. ;)
Jobs: I was head attendant and Miss Boss, Tyler was our Captain, A.J. was a chef, and Skylee helped me out as flight attendant.
I even made Boarding passes for the flight! We loaded up about 5 o'clock, dinner was served (by A.J. and Sky) Skylee served everyone drinks, and then the inflight movie showed! It was a lot of fun.
Oh, almost forgot Skylee told everyone what to do in case of emergancies. It was a good list that she came up with herself:
"In case of fire, go out the window, and flap your arms and fly away like a bird"
"If we land in water, hold your breath and swim away like a fish."
"When your done eating load your own dishes"
All in all it was a lot of fun, but I don't know how I am going to top this when we have been here for a year, it wasn't to hard to come up with this one, but what else can I do for the next one?
(P.S. I welcome any suggestions for the year party, in the comments below)

Tyler "crash landed" the airplane

Skolen/School!!!

My stack of textbooks!

     So it is official school has started. To be even more correct though it started a few weeks ago on the 21st of August. I have just been trying to settle down and begin the school year.
      As most of you know I have been accepted into the IB program. It is an all English program based in a Norwegian High School, which means I still have Norwegian surroundings most of the day. There are some really nice kids in my class, only 7 of us are only English speaking the others speak Norwegian.

This is Sky with my books, showing how tall the stack is. It is huge!

     I have two or three classes a day, but that is enough! My books are HUGE, with just my textbooks in my bag it weighs in close to 30 lbs (14 Kg).
I am up and about by 6:15 because I have early morning seminary on Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, and some Fridays. (Wednesday is after dinner at the church, which is nice.)
School starts at 8:15, each class lasts for 90 minutes. I typically have two classes before the hour lunch and then one more afterwards. I have English, Norwegian, Physics, Math, Chemistry, and a wonderful class that called "Theory of  Knowledge" which questions everything I have ever learned.
     The school has supplied me with all of the textbooks, and a computer that at the end of the two years, will be mine. Everyday I get more homework, each assignment is due within the week. It is a lot of fun.
     Since I am part of the regular school system I have the opertunity to join in the clubs offered here. One such club is the school Newspaper- Kattastrofe (means catastrophe). I went to the first meeting just to hear about it. I ended up being voted the Secretary! The Editor-in-chief is an only English speaking boy in my IB, and the treasurer is also an IB member. So the IB is taking over all of the programs. We also have sent an only English speaking student to the Student Council.
     So there you have a look at my school schedual, and a good idea of what I do each day. If there are any questions about my school LET ME KNOW, I will answer you!!!

Summer

I know I haven't blogged since right after of EFY so I am going to do a really quick thing. Let's see how this all works.

One day we took a trip through town acting the Tourists. This is an old bridge we saw.

They have a fort here with real guns "just in case." We checked it out one day.

This doesn't look like much but this is an old church that they built the library on top of. That is my dream to be forever in the library, except I would like to be alive!

We visited a castle from the 1800's this is where a cannon used to be. The walls were really thick.

This is the castle that we went to. Sadly, it is one story smaller then it used to be. They recycled a lot of the brick on another building.

These are wild blueberries and wild strawberries, they are TEENY, but really sweet.

We went on a hike and found this river and rock dam, all four kids are here somewhere.

This is Monkholmen. It was built from the castle rock. At one point it was a prison at another a monastery.

I played in the water at Monkholmen, this is the closest thing to an actual beach in Norway.

I had a lot of fun, reading on the beach.

Another day in the woods. Berry picking for some of those mini wild blue berries.

We had a great day at the Science museum. A.J. is trying to get the ball through the loops using a fan.

This is the same day we went picking berries, while the girls collected berries the boys collected frogs.

They have a festival here to celebrate some king. They dress up as nights and have jousting tournaments.

Here we are at the festival. If you click on the picture you can make it bigger and see the swords and daggers they are selling, A.J. is holding some chain mail.

 

This is at the fort with the guns, A.J. and I had a Umbrella Fight.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Ok, now that you are at the bottom, comment on which one you want to know more about! I will post a full blog post about the one that gets the most comments on!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Especially For Youth

     WOW was EFY amazing!!! It was my first EFY, but I was looking forward to it after all of the Best of EFY talks we went to as youth in Idaho. My trip started the day before EFY. I got on the train before church was over. It took 6 hours to travel to Oslo. There I met with a really nice family that would let me stay with them for the night, as well as at the end of the week before I came back home.
      The next day, I was up at about five to catch the bus with the rest of the EFY youth, traveling from Norway to Sweden! That took another few hours. Then I got to EFY and the counselors were dancing. I got signed in and went to meet my leaders. I had three youth counselors. It was a lot of fun to get to know them two of our youth counselors, we found out later, were married! We got to meet the rest of the group later too. We had nine girls with two leaders and nine boys with one leader. We were the most international group; there were kids from Spain, Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Chile, America, Germany, and Africa. The ones from Africa and Chile were living in Sweden. The boys from Germany were actually Americans but their dad works with the family history program in the church and they are living in Germany for a year and a half. (I was the other American!) We did not however, have anyone from Iceland which would have been pretty cool. That would be cool because we then would have had someone from each of the four invited countries; Sweden, Norway, Iceland, and Denmark.

From left to right: Jeremiah, Dina, Straw Hat/Henrik, Maria, Mark, ME, Mikael, Beatriz, David, Jehoshua, Simin, Nicklas, Rebekka, and Ryan. (Nicolai, Gabriella, Tracy, and Paoline aren't in the photo.)

      We left as a group for the youth Family Home Evening. Where we played some games that would help us get to know each other. Thanks to the games we found out about everyone being from so many countries. We also set some goals as a group, for example we said our group, the Pillar of LIGHT, would be the Happiest Company!! (And I think we did that.) One of the goals that we set was to eat dinner together everyday, and we did along with breakfast and lunch. I think it really brought us closer as a group.
      The next day was Tuesday. We had a lot of classes on how to better feel the Spirit or how to feel more confident, a little different topics because I would miss the other one in the series. You could choose which ones you wanted to go to. I had to go to the ones that they would translate into English and they would only translate at certain times. You see, the speakers could be from Denmark and so for the non-danish speakers to understand they would translate it to English at 10:30 or whatever. I had some wackier classes because I would miss the one before that explained or the translation didn't quite make sense. :) Even though the classes were fun. I joined the Music Program/Choir on Tuesday and so that is what I did during lunch and free time in the afternoons.
      Tuesday was also the day of the first dance. The dance was casual dress and a lot of fun. One of the American boys, named Ryan, said he would dance with every girl in our group twice by the end of the week. (And he did he even danced with some three times.) It was a ton of fun. They taught us the EFY Line dance- which we got pretty sick of by the end of the week. Sadly the entire dance was over much to soon, it was quite a bit of fun.

This was the First dance. Ximena and Lee our Married leaders. :) They danced together, and I got a picture.

      All too soon it was Wednesday and we couldn't believe the week was going by so fast. The activities were a bit more focused on the Gospel. All morning was about Preach My Gospel and how to teach quickly and effectively to catch someones attention. After dinner we made banners and cheers. Our cheer was fun. We had a few 'bad guys' that would "steal our light" and we would all crumple, then Ryan (who had the deepest voice) would say "LIGHT" and we would jump up one at a time and say "Pillar!" meaning we had become a pillar of light! I helped to make the banner and a really amazing girl in our group drew the mountain and temple on it.

    Later we had a game night our group would go against another group. That was a blast. We played games like Noah's Ark, Tunnel, Arise- Shine- ZAP!!!, and Pioneer Trail. We did really well as a group but another group was always a little bit better. They gave us pizza for a second dinner. One of the girls had a great idea. We took the pizza boxes back to our rooms and then COVERED them in notes to the guys. They did the same for us. It was a lot of fun to just let them know what we thought about them with out them knowing exactly who said it, because we didn't sign our names.
     Thursday was Sunday dress...which was good. We did Young Women/ Young Men's activities. It was also the day of the music program so I was really, really busy the whole time. Everyone in the program gave up most of their dinner and lunch and free time to practice. It was a really great performance. Afterwards we had a testimony meeting.They split all of the youth into separate groups that were smaller that would help make everything go faster and allow more youth to have the chance.
      Day 5 Friday came way, way to fast. We had a Strength Of Youth activity and that was fun. They only offered four classes in English and you had to take four classes, so I had a really hard time deciding. ;) We just spent a lot of time with our groups saying good bye and getting ready for the next day when we leave.
       For a good finale we had our final dance that night too. It was elegant dress so we all got dressed up. It was really hard to say good night and go to bed, so we didn't, at least not until about 10:30 or later. We didn't even go to bed then! Our leaders had a meeting at about 10:40 and didn't get back until one in the morning. They brought Ice Cream for everyone! It was fantastic!
     We got up at about 5:45 the next morning to pack everything up and put the classroom that we stayed in back into order. The leaders took a picture of our class room before the furniture was moved around. Our class room matched the picture perfectly, every chair that was tipped in the photo, was tipped in real life. By eight o'clock I was on the bus and heading back to Oslo. It was a great week, and I really felt close to the kids I met there. I can't wait for the next one in TWO years. That's right two. Here in Scandinavia they do them every other year, which makes it a bit tougher but you will feel closer, at least that is what I think.

This is Jennifer, she was from Sweden and was my Counseler.

This is one of the Americans, Mark, during the dance compitition on Tuesday night.

Here you go it was a great week. I am really grateful for the chance that I had to go and I learned a lot. I am so grateful for the friends I gained there, and the fun I had.  Thanks to all my friends!!

We played Ninja! This is Beatriz and Straw Hat. (We nicknamed him that because he always had the hat on) On this picture it looked like they were dancing! We had a lot of fun just watching!

Tomorrow!!

EFY tomorrow! I leave after church and take a train down to Oslo then a bus to EFY! So excited!! I will fill you in next week!

11:30 Sun

 We had a picnic the other day. We started it about 7 o'clock and stayed until about MIDNIGHT!! It was all part of the plan to see the "Midnight sun", it wasn't up at midnight though :( It went down about 11:30, but we got some really cool pictures from it. I will post more once I can get this dumb program to listen to me! But enjoy for now.

I have been informed....

I have been informed that....I am ACCEPTED INTO THE IB School!!!!!!! For those of you that don't understand I will explain. The IB school is the International Baccalaureate School it will teach me in my own language (English) as well as giving me lessons in Norwegian. I will be taking classes in math, chemistry, physics, and history. It will help me to stay on track with the USA's class schedule, (meaning I will still graduate in two years) as well as helping me complete at least one year of college.
Last Wednesday I went into the school for an exam and an interview. I was freaking out! I did pretty well on the math exam and then had a bit of trouble with the interview because they were asking me Chemistry questions that I had no clue about. They told me that I would receive a letter letting  me know if I was accepted or not. :) I was. The school year starts on the 20th of August. I'm really really excited. :):):):):):):):):)

Now onto something else that I can inform you all about!
I was informed in the middle of May that I would have a talk on the 17th of June (Yesterday) on the Law of Chastity. Tyler had a talk at the end of May and he did his in English with the translator repeating every sentence in Norwegian. I decided that even though it would double my talk time, I didn't want some one sharing the stand with me. So I translated it.
I wrote it in English on Friday and then Saturday I put it into Google Translate. Saturday night my dad and I went through it again and fixed all of Google's mistakes. Then I read it three or four times out loud to my dad. Sunday I was nervous.
I got up on the stand and sat next to an Australian from my ward, he was going to give his talk in English. When it was my turn I went up to the stand. I am sure that everyone was wondering where my translator was, because usually a translator will come up from the back of the room and join the speaker on the stand. Only this time there wasn't one. I took a deep breath and started. I had a few troubles at the beginning and my legs were shaking so bad I am surprised I was able to stay standing!
I went through my talk, I am not sure how long it was, but it was long enough. I finished and on trembling legs went and sat down.
After the  meeting I walked down the stand and was congratulated on every side about how "Kjempe Flott!" I was, (very good/fantastic) The elders said I put the greenies to shame. Which makes me feel really good about my Norwegian. And then I went to school today and didn't understand much of what the teachers said.

Now one more thing my mom is trying a new hairstyle on me. I am going to post a picture below. Let me know what you think.

It goes and twists into this cool bun in the back and, it is really fun to look in the mirror, because I have this really light brown streak right up the center of the bun!
Anyways There you go. Caught up on all the great news I have!!

This one is called 'S'- for Strikes and Sundays

So about three weeks ago we were informed that Tyler, A.J., and Skylee were not able to go to school. A union had decided that they were going to shut down parts of the country as a part of the strike. So for about three weeks they got to lounge around and I got to go to school!!! So it felt like summer vacation-for them.  Today though we found out (to my pleasure) that school is started up again!! Well at least until the end of the school year- the 21st of June.
Now the other 's' Sundays. So on Sunday it was Fast Sunday, with fast Sunday testimony meeting. Skylee, sweet wonderful girl that she is, wanted to bare (is that the write spelling?) her testimony. She went up with one of the translators- she got a bit of stage fright. So my dad went up to help her she didn't get much but she did so well. It got A.J. up as well my dad translated for him, and then my dad did his. A few people latter Tyler got up. He did it without a translator, and very well. Then he says "Sorry, but my sister said she would come up now." In Norwegian so that was very good. But now that meant that I had to get up!! I managed to get through mine about as good as Ty's.
One of the missionaries told my dad that we are about at the level he was when he left the MTC! So it sounds like we are doing pretty well.
Any ways there we go 'S' Strikes and Sundays.

Free book

Free book give away contest entitled: Endlessly. The series sounds really good and I hope to read it soon!

Photos

The other day we went to a local park and took family photos. Here are quite a few!